This was one of those very rare weekends where I was free AND there happened to not be a trial going on at Family Dog Center. They have something going on there darn near every weekend, so it is next to impossible for me to ever get in for some ring time (to date, I don't think I've actually done a ring rental.... at least not since the new arena went int). I called on Friday and confirmed that there was nothing going on, so I made plans to bring the dogs in on Saturday.
The number one goal was to get Kizzy on new equipment in a new environment, but you pay for a 45-minute session, so I figured I may as well bring in Kaiser & Secret to get some play time in as well. I found out when I called in that the Time 2 Beat course from last Sunday was still set in the arena and I figured that would work just as well as anything. It's kind of a bummer that there wasn't a dog walk set up for Kizzy, but I figured it was WAY more important for her to get on a new teeter and her first ever a-frame, so this was as good a set-up as any.
There is a general "no food in the arena" rule on the turf, which I quickly broke. I didn't have much choice because the freedom went to Kizzy's head and she took off exploring the arena straight away. Not only that, but she decided she needed to leave her calling card as well (funny that there is the no treats rule, yet the arena has been pissed on millions of times....). Likity-stiks are allowed, but that was not enticing her at all. Screw it, I whipped out the bag of Charlie Bears, figuring it was the least likely thing to leave any pieces on the floor.
After that I had her with me! It was a really great session and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do this! As I figured, Kizzy quite enjoys the a-frame and took to it immediately. It was set at 5', which I was happy for, and she had no issues with it. The biggest surprise, though, was the teeter! Absolutely no hesitation whatsoever and she did it numerous times. Great!! Kizzy also saw her first double, winged jumps, panel jump and 20' tunnel and handled them all in stride. We ran the entire T2B course, minus the set of 12 weaves. I should have split them into 6, but I was lazy, so in Kizzy's second session I did attempt the 12 with her... Probably shouldn't have done that quite that way, but I did... She actually did quite well. I only got one full set of 12 out of her and didn't push for anything else. More or less I just wanted to see if she would weave away from home and she did. We also worked on putting her harness on after she ran and she did really well. Gave me hope that I'll be able to catch her after a run! :o)
Kaiser was a good little man and was pretty much Mr. Perfect except for simply NOT being able to wrap one of the winged jumps to the left without cutting back to jump over the bar again. He was just so conflicted about it for some reason. lol No issue in the other direction.
Secret did really well on her first time out with the jumps all set at 24". I forgot her frisbee at home so she had to play with the udder tug, but that seemed okay. She was a little weird about the teeter at first, so who knows what's up with that.... But she got over it and was fine. I brought her back in for one last quick spin while the bars were still set at Kaiser's 8" and expected her to be happy and fast. I didn't grab a toy before this run and instead just got her jazzed up with treats like I do before a run at a trial. Good lord, that run was pathetic. I stopped her about halfway through because I will not encourage trotting on course. I went and got a toy and revved her up a bit before trying again. She still wasn't as fast as she'd been in her first session, but it was loads better than what she'd just done. Sheesh. Really? I haven't seen that side of Secret for a long time. Not sure what that's all about.
When we came home I made sure I hadn't broke Kizzy's weaves (they were fine!) and worked a bit on the dog walk since she hadn't seen it at FDC. I also pulled the tire into the yard so that we'll be able to incorporate that on a regular basis now, as that was definitely revealed to be a gap in Kizzy's training. Oh, and the chute... We still need to introduce the chute one of these days!
After seeing the 12 poles at FDC I was finally "inspired" to start the process of introducing 12 poles to Kizzy the correct way. She surprised me at how quickly she took to it! I started with the two sets about 12' apart and moved them together pretty quickly. We struggled with rewarding in the middle and starting again with me on the right for some reason -- Kizzy was happier when I just let her keep going. She developed a rhythm quickly and the result is in the video! I'm tickled pink with her progress.
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